It’s Valentine’s Day! Neuter a Stray to Commemorate Your Ex!
It’s that time of year again. This weekend animal shelters and zoos around the world are fundraising by encouraging people to perform symbolic acts of vengeance against their exes. The “anti-love” campaigns can take many forms.
The Fort Worth Zoo offers to affix your ex’s name to animal dung. For just ten bucks, they will “symbolically dedicate a pound of poop to be composted in the name of your honoree and send you a personalized certificate to commemorate the ex-crement!”
An animal rescue in Detroit will, for a $50 donation, take a feral cat off the street and name it after your ex – then neuter or spay it. First Watch Rescue in Farmington Hills runs their anti-love campaign through February. Homeward Bound Pet Adoption Center in New Jersey has a similar spay–for-spite program.
In Tennessee, the Memphis Zoo has something for lovers or haters. In its “Dating or Dumping” campaign, you can get a cute video of a red panda eating a grape if you're in love. If you’re treating a breakup, you can buy a video of an elephant pooping (signed “Scent with Love”). Either is a ten-dollar donation.
Cockroaches are central to a number of these fundraisers. At the Lodz Zoo in Poland, you can have a Madagascar hissing cockroach baptized in your ex’s name for 50 zloty ($12.50). For 100 zloty, they’ll send you “a photograph of the moment when said cockroach is eaten by one of the animals living in the zoo.” Visitors to the zoo can opt for the premium package which includes personally feeding the insect to the meerkat.
The Bronx Zoo has been deploying cockroaches for the cause since 2011. In Texas, the San Antonio Zoo does a “Cry Me A Cockroach” fundraiser in which one can name a cockroach, rodent, or vegetable after a certain someone and then have it fed to one of their animals.
Some revenge-based campaigns raise funds for wildlife conservation.
The Northern Spotted Owl Breeding Program in British Columbia has a “No regRATS” fundraiser in which they will name a rat for the object of your revulsion, then feed it to one of their owls. Sure, they’ll send you a photo of the rodent getting gobbled up.
It gets even better at WildCat Ridge Sanctuary in Oregon. For a $75 donation, they’ll make a heart-shaped treat of gelatin and meat – i.e., your ex’s heart – then feed it to their wildcats. A video of the carnage is included.
“For me, the really fun part is seeing the cats doing something entirely new for them, and really, really getting into it,” sanctuary executive director Ian Ford tells KOIN. “We have a video of one of our Asian leopard cats. They’re really small, and she grabs the heart and she just takes off with it and she’s growling and eating it. And, man, it’s cathartic.”
Photo credit: Northern Owl Breeding Program
